Art Jewelry Boot Camp #4 - Jewelry Clasps

Welcome to the 4th Jewelry Makers' Blog Hop sponsored by Love My Art Jewelry. This month's assignment was to construct our own clasps. For this challenge I decided to make a few standard wire work "S" clasps as well as work with some new textures and shapes I had not tried before using copper sheet.

To start here is a version of the classic wire "S" I made recently and like to use with copper wired bead bracelets. They are fairly easy to make using needle nose pliers and a steel mandrel. The copper wire has been patinated with liver of sulphur and then hand polished.

Here is another variation of the classic "S" clasp hammered flat.

The next piece was an experiment in bending a small rectangular strip of copper sheet to form a hook and hinge and then wrapping it with copper wire to secure the ends.

For the fourth clasp, I tried cutting out shapes from textured copper sheet made for a previous boot camp. It took a hammer, texture materials, jeweler's saw, drill bit; as well as a needle file and sandpaper to smooth all the rough edges after they were cut.

Here is what it looks like closed.

Now all I have to do is make some jewelry to go with these clasps. I have a few ideas... ;)

Click the Love My Art Jewelry Boot Camp button to see more beautiful

handmade clasps: